


A Spell Cast In Four Acts, One Interlude, And Six Seconds

by Katia_chan



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Caleb needs a hug, Gen, Hurt/Comfort without the Comfort, Panic Attacks, Trauma, and a blanket, and maybe a room where he can just scream for like an hour, half a second that feels like an hour, lack of punctuation because of an ongoing mental breakdown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-10
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 18:22:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29954031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katia_chan/pseuds/Katia_chan
Summary: Plain Shift takes six seconds. Caleb lives and dies a hundred times in those half-dozen eternities. Spoilers for ep 128.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 26





	A Spell Cast In Four Acts, One Interlude, And Six Seconds

**Author's Note:**

> The lack of punctuation is a choice. Just roll with it, kay?

The door to the tower room opens.

He's feared it before he's feared it always from the moment he met them from the moment he saw her mother her son her husband her home. The hinges will finish creaking and there will be red robes and grey hair and that face and that voice, that voice, echoing in his ears calling him back shaming coaxing scolding pushing always pushing always looking for ways in making him remember never letting him forget keeping him there seventeen and they're burning he's burning it's all burning.. and they're all going to die here and it's all his fault he wasn't smart enough or fast enough and he needs to keep reading but his hands are shaking and he's having trouble seeing through the creeping grayness at the edge of his vision and the ringing in his ears is making it hard so hard to concentrate.

It's a smaller form in the door, strong nose, tousled hair... hand raised.

Nights under the stars holding each other kissing each other wiping blood from skin and tears from cheeks, kissing and tasting blood and tears and loving her so much swearing he'd never stop, begging her to go on and on and on under the rough blankets of his narrow bed, magic spreading between them so young and wild, and pure destructive passion but also softness and tenderness and sweat and fresh bread and the smell of wood smoke and morning coffee and a poor but honest life that was ruined by ambition.

Her fingers quirk in the air.

He saw that gesture today made that gesture mirroring old yellowed hands that hurt him then and hurt him still in so many unanticipated ways, family and friends and all of it riding on a lucky shot that he could hardly make because all he wanted to do was run and run and run or shoot bolt after bolt after bolt of fire until there was nothing left but ash and charred red robes. But he made it and his was better and they ran and fled and hid on the beach in the house in the tower, and now she's going to make that final gesture that won't kill him but might as well because all the hope will be parchment crumbling into ash in his fingers, and it will all be over they will be over he will be over. The scroll shaking in his hands is the tiny string of hope they plucked out of this mess and she's going to destroy it and there's nothing he can do to stop her and then that will be the end of them the end of his friends the end of what he's worked so hard for the end of his penance the end of everything, and it will take less than a second.

A pause.

Half a breath.

Someone's crying.

Her hand falls.

And they go. In an absence of magic in the drooping of a wrist in the relaxing of fingers and in the gift of one more moment they are gone.

And so is she. It just hasn't happened yet.

Lost.

**Author's Note:**

> I just imagined that watching Astrid's hand was a defining moment of Caleb's existance, and Matt focused on the gesture so much that I wanted to break it down. Sorry it turned out more like slam poetry than a normal fic, but commas just... fall by the wayside when you and your friends are about to die and you're sure your ex-lover's going to do it and that it's probably your fault.


End file.
